Tools

Cutting a square rabbet with a rabbeting plane is a challenge for beginners; usually they cut a rabbet that slopes in toward the shoulder or away from the shoulder. When I teach people how to use [...]

Shannon Rogers of the Hand Tool School brought along his 48”-long Roubo frame saw to the Saturday meeting of the Chesapeake chapter of the Society of American Furniture Makers, explained its [...]

Though I’ve been a non-editor at both Popular Woodworking and The Fine Tool Journal for almost three years now, I still have debts to pay. And I take those debts seriously. One of my first [...]

The difference between school and real life is that in real life the tests come first and then the lessons. This is especially true of woodworking; you never know how far you should take one step [...]

Note: I started writing this blog entry more than a year ago. I shelved it and have revisited it several times since. Each time, I thought: I don’t need this kind of grief. For whatever reason [...]

If you’re about to embark on building your first workbench, you might want to read this blog entry. I expect you to discard every piece of advice in it (most bench-builders do) and build the [...]

There was a time when nearly even adult male in the United States owned a Stanley #4 smooth plane. The one I have was passed down to me by my dad (a chemical engineer) who got it from his dad …

When I started work at Popular Woodworking in 1996, the goal was to cram as many projects into each issue as possible. No techniques. No tool reviews. Just 17 to 20 projects. Oh, and we couldn’t [...]

I can’t deny that I’ve always wanted a large woodshop. Patterned after a professional shop, my large woodshop would include: Space for hundreds of board feet of lumber Dedicated [...]

If cleanliness is truly next to godliness, then we are lords of the underworld. I took this picture (and shot the video below) whilst standing atop my bench…my bench to which one must take [...]

Maxed Out Midi Lathe. General International’s New Variable Speed Maxi-Lathe VS has all the great features that made its predecessor, the General 25-100 so popular. Both machines are made of heavy [...]

When it comes to pushing our handplanes, I think we are candy-bottomed wussies compared to the joiners of the 17th century. We are obsessed with how thin a shaving we can make. Early joiners, [...]